2010

Highlights of 2010:

Slightly increased attention from religious conservatives in South Africa paid to vampire fiction, and the real VC. Real Vampire News service focusing on international VC news founded by John Reason. Vampire Community News group on Facebook providing news forum for the OVC opened by VCA. Several amusing mentions of vampires in the media, several crimes reported mentioning the word “Vampire”. Institutionalization of a Donor Appreciation Day. Founding of the International Vampyre Alliance, Real Vampire Forum, House Valur website in South Africa. The Robert Parratore Conspiracy.

January: OVC – Vampyre community figures begin to openly comment that fiction such as “Twilight” and others, are “fueling interest in real Vampyrism”. This is seen to have both positive and negative consequences for the Vampyre community.

January: South Africa – Taryn Hodgeson of Christian Action Network in South Africa tackles the “Twilight” books and movies, joining the legions of fundamentalist Christian figures worldwide who are demanding that parents prevent their children from reading the books, watching the movies and “falling prey” to “hidden occult and pagan messages” and “moral decay”.

February: USA – “Real Vampire News”, an online news service covering Vampyre oriented news is established by John Reason.

February 10: South Africa – After researching the Vampyre community in South Africa and finding hardly any trace of a support structure, Octarine Valur decides to establish a real Vampyre House. At the time, most local Vampyres are active on foreign community forums in the US and UK, or underground in small disconnected secret groups. House Valur is established as a real Vampyre House. A facebook group is set up in an attempt to locate and network with local South African Vampyres. Contact is made with several individuals.

February 13: South Africa – The creation of a blog site by Octarine Valur, called at first “House Valur Vampyre Coven”, intended to provide information on real Vampyres in order to draw out local Vampyres.

March: New York City, New York, USA – An unknown passenger in a NYC taxi-cab claims to be a Vampyre before biting the cab driver several times and then fleeing, but not before a security camera captures an image of him. He remains unidentified.

Seattle, USA – Police in Seattle arrest a suspicious man who forced the closure of several streets surrounding the King County Courthouse. Earlier in the morning, the director of the Seattle Union Gospel Mission, Mike Johnson, said the same man walked in, claimed he was a vampire and then showed them what appeared to be a pipe bomb which later turned out to be fake. It is later revealed that the man told a judge in court the day before, that his medications were not working.

April: OVC, USA – On April 1 a mass email is sent out from the Sucitatio (AVA) Ning page regarding a purported interview with Larry King by the “Prominent Vampyre elders from the four largest havens in the U.S.” While Google’s April Fool’s Day joke about permanently changing its name to “Topeka” is fairly easy to see through, the Vampire Community News prank is not quite as transparent. In the end it turns out to be a simple joke.

USA – Johnathon Sharkey “Johnathon the Impaler”, a man claiming to be a Vampyre and a direct descendant of Vlad the Impaler, announces his candidacy for Presidency in 2012 – to be the first Vampyre president of the USA. Johnathon “the Impaler” claims to have a great deal in common with Republican values, aside from threatening to institute impalement as a punishment for serious crimes. JS is shortly after this pretty much sin nomine in the VC, if not officially then de facto.

April 25: Mexico – “The Declaration of Blood”, is published in Spanish by Phoennos Immortalis (PI) and Lord V. (LV) on the Nación Vampírica website. The Declaration of Blood can be seen as a continuation of Vampiricón, another text by the same authors, but above all a necessary expansion and deepening of some concepts and ideas found in this. The Vampiricón is much better understood through the Declaration of Blood, for this second text also addresses practical issues such as consumption of blood and daily issues faced by Vampyres. Thus, while a real Vampyre can relate to all or part of the Vampiricón, both texts are complementary and form a body of ideas about real Vampyres and vampirism. (Source: Noctalium)

May 04: South Africa – Democratic Alliance party leader Helen Zille describes South Africa’s government and ruling party as a “vampire state”. South Africa had become a “vampire state” under the ANC”, “We have granted a parasitic elite freedom to loot, and freedom from accountability,” she said in a Freedom Day debate.

May 5: South Africa – House Valur creates an online forum to serve the international real Vampyre community, the “Real Vampire Forum” and to find local South African real Vampyres at the location of the House. Although on a “back-burner”, the forum continues to exist (2013).

May 6: New Zealand – A man who hits on his friend’s girlfriend is bitten by three people and has his blood sucked in a vampire-style attack in New Zealand. The victim passes out after the attack. James Phillip Brooks, 22, and Xenia Gregoriana Borichevsky, 19, admit biting the man, but claim he is their friend and did not want to hurt him and believe they did not puncture any skin.

May 21: Cleveland, Ohio, USA – House Kheperu hosts its annual Open House event.

June: Colorado, USA – A Colorado woman claims a vampire’s sudden appearance caused her to wreck her sport-utility vehicle late one night. The victim said she was driving down a dead-end dirt road in Mesa County about 11 p.m. when she saw a vampire in her headlights. According to Grand Junction’s nbc11news.com, she quickly threw the SUV in reverse but backed into a canal in her haste. The SUV ended up on its side, stuck in the narrow ditch. Troopers who arrived on the scene say they found no evidence of a blood-sucking undead traffic hazard. They also say there were no drugs or alcohol involved in the wreck. The woman was treated briefly by paramedics, then taken home by her husband.

USA – Steve Wohlberg, occult researcher and bestselling author, comes out against Twilight in his new book “The Trouble with Twilight: Why Today’s Vampire Craze is Hazardous to Your Health”. In the book he states, “Twilight has positive features, but it is laced with occultism, contains mixed moral messages, and is now fueling the dangerous practice of sipping real blood among teens and adults.” This trend also leads to the creation of small anti-Vampyre groups, primarily religious, focusing on real Vampyres, goths and emos.

June 20: USA – “The Gates”, an American supernatural crime drama television series airs on the ABC network from June 20, 2010 to September 19, 2010. The story is about Nick Monohan and his family, who move from Chicago to a quiet, upscale planned community called The Gates, where he will be chief of police. They soon realize that their neighbors are not who they seem to be. The Gates is filled with such beings as vampires, witches, werewolves, and a succubus. The show is canceled after its first season due to low ratings. (Article)

June 30: USA – The third “Twilight” movie, “Eclipse” is released to a public reception verging on hysteria. The film receives mixed reception from critics. It holds the record for biggest midnight opening in the United States and Canada in box office history, grossing an estimated $30 million, until it is surpassed by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” in 2011. The “Twihard” phenomenon intensifies, and the number of youth drawn to the VC online continues to increase. Observers from within the VC comment that though Twilight is annoying and “way off” in its misrepresentation of vampires, it has generally improved the pubic image of vampires, making it easier for real self-identifying Vampyres and participants in the community to do so more publicly.

July: A “Donor Appreciation Day” is proposed by community member Drake Mefestta and makes widespread impact in the international community.

July 4: New Zealand – A 23-year-old man dies watching the hit vampire movie, “Eclipse”, in a Wellington cinema. Police report the death of the man, whose body is found slumped in a seat after an early evening screening, is “unexplained but not suspicious”. Detective Scott Miller said there were no obvious injuries, and that an autopsy would be performed on the 6th. Miller said the man lived in Wellington but was thought to be a transient who travelled throughout New Zealand.

July 8: Sydney, Australia – University of Western Sydney Associate Professor Adam Possamai, who specializes in sociology of religion, said the growing number of “vampires” was an example of hyper-real religions – new faiths that draw on religion, philosophy and popular culture to create their own beliefs. He said people had been interested in vampires since the 1970s, particularly the super-human abilities of vampires. “Some groups developed and have become quite active on the internet,” he said. “The vampire is no longer a monster that needs to be exclusively destroyed, it is now a superman-type of character that people aspire to become to realize their full potential. “Dracula has become a modern-day gothic Buddha.”

July 10: USA – The foundation of the Vampire Nation Concord (VNC) as an attempt to inspire cohesion and communication within the international Vampyre, Therian and Otherkin Community. The group is a continuation of the older Vampire Nation group. Although the group has good intentions, it is plagued by role players and high-flyers who run amok and soon threaten to bring the house down. Weak leadership is the group’s ultimate failing.

July 29: USA – A new injectable anti-ageing treatment, called the “Vampire Facelift”, comprised of the patients’ own blood cells is marketed as the next best thing to a facelift, without the surgery and downtime. Selphyl eliminates facial folds and wrinkles naturally, by using the patient’s own blood to stimulate collagen regeneration and volume replacement. Increased skin volume and amazing rejuvenation occurs as new collagen and blood vessels develop, while their own tissues reverse the signs of aging. There is no risk of allergic reaction, little to no bruising, swelling or lumping occurs and long lasting results are clearly visible within a short time. It is claimed the entire process takes about 20 minutes, the patient will see some results right away, but the full effect comes in about three weeks. Results can last up to two years with single injection. For the next few years, the procedure becomes the obsession of celebrity news.

July 30: USA – Anne Rice, the author of Interview with a Vampire, reportedly “quits” Christianity over the faith’s “hostile” attitudes to gay rights, women and contraception. She had converted to Catholicism 12 years previously but announces on her Facebook profile that although she remains “committed to Christ”, she no longer wants to be part of the faith. Rice was brought up Catholic but was atheist for many years until vowing at the age of 57 to dedicate her writing entirely to Christ, forsaking her writing of vampire novels, and focusing on angel characters instead. “It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.” She states that her faith in Christ is “central” but “following Christ does not mean following His followers”. Rice’s son Christopher is gay and contributes to the US gay magazine Advocate.

August: USA – An Alaska man, Andrew Philemonof Jr, is found not guilty of assault and vampirism by a Unalaska jury.

August 4: Barstow, Florida, USA – Police arrest a man they say stabbed and killed his roommate and then drank his blood. Mauricio Lopez is charged with the murder of Macario Luna Cruz on 3 August. Police also say Lopez is in the U.S. illegally. According to police reports, Lopez, 42, stabbed Cruz, 32, in the front yard of the Bartow home the two men shared. Lopez was arguing with Cruz’s brother, 22-year-old Juan Cruz, about his involvement with Mirella Mendez. The argument escalated, and Lopez allegedly stabbed Cruz in the lower back. Cruz was able to get away from Lopez with only minor injuries, police said. Lopez then returned to the home on Martin Luther King Boulevard, where he stabbed Macario Cruz to death, police said. He then ran from the scene. Mendez said her four children watched as Cruz was murdered. “He closed the door in front, I tried to go in, but I couldn´t,” she said. “All I heard was the children screaming, ‘Please don´t kill him, Uncle, please let him live. Don´t kill Macario.'” Mendez said Lopez then ran out of the house and did something she is still having a hard time believing. “Afterwards he had a cup of blood in his hand,” she said. “He told me, ‘That dog is dead now and his life belongs to me.’ Then he took the cup and drank the blood in front of me.” Investigators also research why Lopez allegedly drank his victim’s blood. Mendez said it is part of an ancient ritual. “In Mexico, they say that the blood he drank was so he could evade law enforcement,” “He kept saying that his life belonged to him and that´s why he had to drink it. Lopez later tells police that he was drunk and cannot remember drinking the blood.

August 13: Peru – Rabid vampire bats attack more than 500 people in Peru’s Amazon region. 5 children are believed to die from rabies.

September 5: South Africa – Drafting of a new law of the community for use in the South African context, due to dissatisfaction with the “Black Veil”. A new draft called “the Totum Lex Vampyrica” (The Whole Vampyric Law) is drawn up. It is posted on several forums for comment and refined.

September 15: South Africa – The draft of the Totum Lex Vampyrica is adopted by House Valur as House Law, along with secular House rituals (Pacta Sunt Servanda, and Primoris Annus Lamia) for use within the House.

September 21: Sandakan, Malaysia: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Peter Pang proposes an incentive program to be called “Vampire Cup” to push non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into collecting as many pints of blood as they could. Far from its ghoulish name, the cup is aimed at overcoming the shortage of blood in hospitals Statewide, with the winner to be given a mystery prize for its effort. “Starting from now until the year end, NGOs which organize the most blood donation campaigns and have the most number of donors will be given an incentive award,” he said during the 2010 Malaysian Red Crescent (MRC) Sandakan Chapter fund raising dinner.

October 1: First annual International Donor Appreciation Day, celebrating Black Swans who sustain the Vampyre community internationally.

October 5: International Vampire Appreciation Day, celebrating the Vampyre community internationally.

October 11: Phoenix, Arizona, USA – Two people are arrested in Phoenix for stabbing a third man after he refused to let them drink his blood. Robert Maley, 25, tells police that Aaron Homer, 24, and Amanda Williamson, 21, were interested in “vampire stuff and paganism” and that he had let the pair drink his blood before. When he refused to let them do it again, he claims they stabbed him in the arm. Police who arrive at the Phoenix apartment Homer and Williamson share, find them covered in blood and note a trail of blood leading away from the apartment. They find Maley a few blocks away with a stab wound to his left arm. The knife allegedly used in the attack is found underneath the mattress in a bedroom in the apartment. Both Homer and Williamson face charges of false reporting to law enforcement, and Homer faces a charge of aggravated assault. Maley, described as a transient, is also arrested on an outstanding warrant for violating the terms of his probation.

October 11: Cobb County, Georgia, USA – 16-year-old Shelby Ellis of Cobb County, Georgia takes a bus to her High School, then goes missing. Her worried parents log onto her computer and find that the last site she’d visited was Vampire Freaks.com. Naturally, they jump to the conclusion that she has been kidnapped and possibly ex-sanguinated by Vampyres. The following week, one of her school friends also vanishes, and soon after, a third. They hire a private investigator, who agrees with them that a “vampire cult” is at work. Within days, US local and national media is swept up in a vampire hysteria. Shelby remains missing for three weeks.

October 11: Queensland, Australia – Scholar David Keyworth is quoted in a newspaper interview about real Vampyres as blaming the phenomenon on an unofficial psychiatric disorder called “Renfield’s syndrome” involved (usually males) drinking blood for sexual pleasure. “There is an increasing number of otherwise-normal youth who genuinely believe that they are vampires for real, and claim to have a congenital or metabolic need to consume the blood (self-styled “sanguinarian” vampires) and/or bodily energy of the living (”psi-vamps”),” he wrote. Researchers say the Internet has enabled disparate individuals around the world to meet and reinforce spiritual beliefs based on traditionally “dark” mythical forces such as vampires and werewolves. “People are becoming inspired by the characteristics of the vampire and see them as a source of fulfilling their potential and inner abilities,” Adam Possamai, Sydney author of “Sociology of Religion for Generations X and Y” adds in the same interview. The article estimates 300 Australians in the local community.

October 12: South Africa – House Valur and House of Havoc, two South African Houses, open relations and begin sharing information with the goal of building the South African Vampyre/Therian/Otherkin community.

October 15: Malawi – It is revealed that dozens of people in Malawi, most of them elderly women, are jailed for up to six years with hard labor for practicing witchcraft. Campaigners say they will call on president Bingu wa Mutharika to release the 86 prisoners since witchcraft is not a crime under Malawian law. Most of the group are elderly women accused by children of teaching them witchcraft. Belief in the practice is widespread in the impoverished Southern African country. George Thindwa, spokesperson for the Association of Secular Humanism, calls for the women to be freed immediately because they had committed no crime. “We are intervening in this matter because we are concerned we still have prisons in Malawi [with] people being accused of being witches,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa program. “The courts were wrong 100%, [and] the police, to actually accommodate cases.”

October 16: Portland, Oregon, USA – A group called “Bloodsuckers against TWILIGHT” (B.A.T.) gather in front of Portland, Oregon’s Memorial Coliseum to protest and burn copies of the Twilight book series. B.A.T. members – who claim to be real vampires – dressed in the requisite garb of black capes and pale skin, gleefully pulled apart copies of Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn and throw them into a burning oil drum. In a statement before the event, B.A.T. spokesman Baron Von Goolo, said he hoped the books would “sparkle” when they burned. The group members say that Stephenie Meyer’s books make a mockery of real vampires and created damaging “racial stereotypes.” Mr. Von Goolo says the books make vampires seem like “a clutch of sullen poster-boys,” according to local ABC news station KATU-TV. He says that the vampires in the books are “unrealistic” and that the likelihood of real vampires falling in love with an “annoying high school girl” is as realistic as a human falling in love with a ham sandwich. B.A.T. stage the event to “restore the image of vampires” from Ms. Meyer’s “blasphemous opportunism” back to reflect vampires as “the savage beasts that they are”. Von Goolo tells local CBS news station KOIN-TV that: “Vampires are supposed to be blood-soaked monsters of midnight.” However, an earlier press release about the Twilight book-burning protest said B.A.T. was staging the event to promote the annual local Halloween event called “FrightTown”. The VC discuss this largely as an *SMH* event.

October 19: USA –Tuft University in the USA begins offering an 8 week course “Vampires in Civilization” presented by author and “vampire expert” Joseph Laycock, author of “Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism”. The class takes a serious, scholarly and sometimes unexpected approach to understanding the undead.

October 20: OVC – House Valur is recognized within the Vampire Nation Concord (VNC) as its official ambassador for the South African VC.

October 22: OVC – The VNC begins to graduallydescend into confusion and argument indicating that the group, purporting to represent the real Vampyre Community, is plagued by a liberal infusion of role-playing gamers. This appears to be partly the result of poor membership entry control and grandiose role-playing practices, such as the adoption of grandiose medieval titles, accompanied by outlandish claims of royalty and bloodlines. The indulgent nature of the group appears to encourage role-playing.

October 23: OVC- One member of the VNC in particular, “Prince Arnold” (aka “Prince Seth”) makes astounding claims on the group about Vampyre hunter groups secretly hunting Vampyres, that he is negotiating for group recognition with the UN – and most astonishing of all, that PSI Vampyres have suddenly begun to experience blood cravings as a result of “the magnetic poles of the Earth shifting”. The VNC appears split down the middle, with many Vampyres criticizing the post as blatant role-playing, and “laughable fantasy”, while incredibly, a few appear to show him support. The group is criticized from within as a “bad reflection on the community”.

October 26: OVC – Instead of asserting their authority to indicate that the VNC is a group intended to represent the real Vampyre Community, the leadership of the group panders to the role-players, indulging in their ridiculous fantasies and causing a large number of prominent real VC figures to threaten to leave the group.

October 27: OVC – A schism occurs within the Vampyre Nation Concord (VNC), with some members on the main council opting to form a new group focusing on the narrower focus of the international Vampyre community, and without the interference of unchecked role-players, lifestylers and “free-radicals” who have plagued the VNC from the outset. This split is the result of discontent, largely with the disorganized way the group has been run, and the conduct of some of its representatives. The VNC continues to exist, although in reduced capacity, and without any formal recognition from the broader Vampyre community. By 2013 it has been relegated to obscurity.

October 28: OVC – The group which broke away from the Vampire Nation Concord (VNC) forms a new representative body, based on a corporate structure with the intentions of representing Vampyre affairs to Mundane society, with international representation in mind. The new group is established as The International Vampyre Alliance (IVA). A closed forum for the IVA is set up to facilitate debate and co-operation internationally, with Vampyre community groups worldwide being invited to join. Due to the inherent nature of the VC at the time, interest in “governing bodies” is thin.

October 28: OVC – House Valur, one of the Houses that breaks away from the Vampire Nation Concord (VNC), and joins the new US-based International Vampyre Alliance (IVA) as its Ambassador for the Vampyre community in South Africa.

October 29: MESA, Arizona, USA – Law enforcement on the hunt for sex offenders around the Halloween holiday come across a convicted child molester who says he’s a vampire – and has the fangs to prove it. Officials say David Gray, 48, sleeps in a coffin, drives a hearse and believes he’s a vampire. “He had permanent dental implants put into his teeth to appear like fangs,” says U.S. Marshal Thomas Henman. “Mr. Gray was convicted of molesting his girlfriend’s young daughter, did a little bit of time and then sentenced to a lifetime county probation,” Henman said. In August, Gray violated his probation, moved and then failed to tell his probation officer. Officials found Gray walking at the intersection near 67th Street and Main in Mesa. “At that time they jumped out of their vehicles, ordered them down to the ground and he hissed at the officers,” Henman said. Gray is just one of 30 sex criminals arrested during that week for various offenses and registration violations. Presumably the rest are not Vampyres.

October 31: It is announced that researchers at Mater Hospital in Dublin have completed a study into vampirism, based on an incident where a man visited a hospital in Eastern Europe, claiming that if he did not drink blood he would die – nearly 20 years previously. Brendan Kelly, a consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Hospital, and his colleague Seamus MacSuibhne, connect the personal beliefs of real Vampyres who believe themselves to be real Vampyres – with schizophrenia. Meanwhile, many real Vampyres hope for a serious research group to take an in-depth and objective look into the nature of the Vampyre in future, in order to disprove clearly biased theories which help fuel anti-Vampyre bias.

November : South Africa – A South African vampire TV series is punted on News24.com, with a low-grade draft “pilot’ episode on Youtube. The series is called “The Watchers” and receives a positive public review. Nothing further is heard of it.

November 1: USA – House of Sheol Vampire Coven institutionalizes an annual day to celebrate Vampyres and Black Swans on November 1. Billed as “International Vampire Day”, this takes time to make an impression on the international community, but is celebrated in their territory with the aim of generating public support and understanding of Vampyres and donors.

November 2: Atlanta, Georgia, USA – The Atlanta Vampire Alliance releases a statement criticizing the US national and local media for irresponsible reporting and stereotyping around the disappearance of teenager Shelby Ellis, which is blamed for generating vampire hysteria and even fueling the “satanic panic” response in hate crimes against the real Vampyre community. The AVA also urges the real Vampyre community to report Shelby’s whereabouts if contacted by her.

November 3: Washington, USA – Missing teen Shelby Ellis is found by police in Washington, safe and sound, living with a friend of her own free will. As it turns out, she had run away from home because of “over-strict parenting” and Vampyres had nothing to do with her disappearance after all. Sensationalist reporting in the media and the controversial “Top Secret Writers.com” series of articles on the Vampyre Community continue over the following weeks, including interviews with several community figures. Some of these articles provoke a flare-up in the lingering Sang-Psi rift in the community.

November 7: South Africa – Christian missionary Steve Khanya posts his article “Vampire community?” in which he makes the assumption that the Vampyre Community is a bunch of delusional kids pretending to be undead fictional vampires. He expresses his views entirely through the lens of Bram Stoker and “Dracula”. In his article he claims that the subculture is “hijacking” the vampire myth and the term, and making it their own. He asks sarcastically: “Can one really have a “community” composed of fictional creatures, largely invented by Bram Stoker in the late 19th century? Can one really describe such creatures as a sub-culture?” He goes on to call the VC violent and compares it to terrorists: “But even assuming that there really are such creatures as Bram Stoker wrote about, and that they actually behave in the way described in his book, then saying that a community composed of such creatures is not violent is really stretching it — like saying that a community of terrorists, or a community of torturers and interrogators is not violent. What next? Are there media stereotypes of hobbits, and unfair misrepresentations of the “hobbit community”?” Steve is shocked to receive a number of pointed email complaints from participants in his claimed “fictional” community which do NOT fit his claimed demographic.

November 8: South Africa – Newspapers announce South Africa’s first vampire flick, “Eternity”, with the lead “Billy” played by Andre Frauenstein. Supporting stars include Christina Storm, Rikki Brest, Hlomla Dandala, Ian Roberts, and David James. Plot synopsis: “Billy is a vampire who falls in love with a human girl named Jenny. Jenny’s father happens to be a scientist working on a cure for HIV/AIDS who, accidentally, creates a serum that allows vampires to daywalk. The discovery sets off a war between the vampire clans with the traditionalists, led by Constantine, who believe the serum is a defamation of the blood and Borlak, a young vampire who wants to move the race out of darkness.” The release date is set for December 16 2010, with the movie set to reach cinemas by December 24.

November 20: USA – The Shelby Ellis debacle and rampant SRA hysteria type misconceptions in media reporting around the incident is responsible for the formation of another rights group, the Gothic And Vampire Alliance, which is founded by Niki fears, a capable writer and civil rights activist advocating a civil rights movement for the Vampyre community in the face of recent persecution in real life as well as in press and media attacks on goths and Vampyres. Their prime focus appears to be online awareness campaigns, press releases and campaigns to politely address hostility towards Goths and Vampyres in online forums as a dedicated online group called “the Midnight Brigade”. Among the potential projects discussed is a possible “Goth and Vampyre Pride Day”.

November 29: OVC – The International Vampyre Alliance (IVA) announces that it is gathering statistics on incidents of hate-crime against Vampyres as part of laying the foundations for an awareness campaign as well as determining the current status quo in this regard. Any person who self-identifies as a member of the Vampyre community and has experienced any discrimination, violence or any other incident which can be described as a hate crime on the basis of their being Vampyre, is encouraged to contact the IVA with details.

November 29: Tema, Ghana – An evangelical pastor is among five people arrested for dousing 72-year-old Ama Hemmah in kerosene and setting her ablaze. The 72-year-old Ghanaian woman is burned to death on suspicion of being a witch, prompting condemnation from the country’s human rights groups. Ama Hemmah was allegedly tortured into confessing she was a witch, doused in kerosene and set alight. She suffered horrific burns and died the following day. Hemmah, from Tema, was allegedly attacked by a group of five people, one of whom is an evangelical pastor, Ghana’s Daily Graphic reports. Three women and two men have been arrested. They are Nancy Nana Ama Akrofie, 46, photographer Samuel Ghunney, 50, Emelia Opoku, 37, Mary Sagoe, 52, and pastor Samuel Fletcher Sagoe, 55. The suspects claim the death was an accident and deny committing any crime. They claim they were trying to exorcise an evil spirit from the woman by rubbing “anointing oil” on her but it “accidentally caught fire”. Hemmah’s son, Stephen Yeboah, 48, told the Daily Graphic: “Our mother was never a witch and had never suffered any mental disorder throughout her life, apart from exhibiting signs of forgetfulness and other symptoms of old age.” Newspaper pictures showing the woman’s injuries cause anger in Ghana. The incident is condemned by human and women’s rights activists.

November 30: USA – Robert Parratore, a freelance writer claiming to be a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, publishes an article on the Yahoo Associated Content website called “Blood, Boredom, and Blame – A Study of “Real” Blood Drinking Vampires”. In the article Parratore claims to have performed a study on a number of sanguine Vampyres in a lab at the university, using fake blood to test if the “sang vamps” would notice the difference. According to him, they do not. Parratore then claims sanguine Vampyres suffer from mental illness, as indicated by his “study” using his authority as a scientific researcher to back his claims. The article is widely criticized by the community, and people with medical knowledge who argue that the “study” did not follow ethical or standard research practice. Parratore ignores calls to produce research data to substantiate his claims or to prove that his study took place. He also fails to produce any proof of his qualfications or accreditation.

November 30: OVC – Members of the Vampyre Community begin to conduct investigations into Robert Parratore. They find that Parratore seems to have simply popped into existence as a contributing writer for Yahoo Associated Content since November 2010, having a blog and no online record before that time. Subsequent calls to the University of Pennsylvania reveal that there is no such researcher active there, and that Robert Parratore is a fake identity, presumably a pen-name for a frustrated writer who has targeted the Vampyre Community.

December 1: OVC – The online debate around Vampyre rights escalates into open hostility, even taking on the mantle of the PSI-Sang rift of the previous decade.

December 1: Pietermaritzburg, South Africa – A woman and her husband are burnt to death after they are accused by neighbors of having abducted a 7 year old boy to use for witchcraft. Tholakele Shoba, 54, a trainee traditional healer, and her husband Shezi, 60, are killed in Snathing near Edendale at about 13:00. About 100 community members who killed them sit next to the badly burnt bodies until a mortuary van arrives to collect them at about 18:30. The community members repeatedly state the couple deserve to die in that way because they had “abducted a number of people who are still missing”.

December 1: South Africa – In South Africa, 34 people are reported to have been victims of witchcraft accusation in 2010. NONE of these victims, some of whom were killed, were actually witches. The South African Human Rights Commission has to date failed to publicly condemn the ongoing trend of witch hunts nationally. The spokesperson for the SA Pagan Rights Alliance, Damon Leff, makes a statement saying witch hunts on the African continent are largely motivated through localized forms of religious extremism by practitioners of traditional African religions who believe that witchcraft is the cause of misfortune, traditional healers (including diviners, herbalists, ‘witch doctors’) who use various forms of divination to point out suspected witches, and charismatic revivalist Christian religious leaders (pastors and prophets) who use their prejudicial notions of witchcraft as a manifest form of satanic evil to encourage their followers to find (accuse) and convert suspected witches.

December 3: OVC – The founder of the Gothic & Vampire Alliance, and its leading voice and writer – Niki Fears, withdraws from the group, citing threatening phone calls as the reason. Leadership of the group passes to Alekzandria TheAncient who heads the recently founded House Meiyo Kodai Chi No.

December 8: USA – “Robert Parratore” posts another new article on Associated Content entitled “Real Vampires Drink Blood”, and uses a member of the Vampyre Community whom nobody seems to know in order to berrate and cause offense to PSI Vampyres from a sanguine perspective. The interviewee, Genvieve Rigaud, is believed by many to be fictional, and the article intended to reopen the rift which remains after the PSI-Sang war a decade earlier.

December 9: Gadsden, Alamaba, USA – Evan Francis Brown, 20, is arrested in Gadsden, Alamaba, for second-degree assault. Police say in October Brown heated a fork or spoon on a stove in a house shared by homeless children and used it to burn a “V” into a 17-year-old boy’s forehead. He allegedly tied the teen up, tricking him into believing they were playing a game. The boy went to a hospital for treatment, where Police were notified. Shortly after the incident, when Police arrived at the house, most members of the cult had scattered. Police say the teenager also had cigarette burns on his face and arms and had been beaten. The Gadsden Times reports that Brown has told authorities his religious belief is Satanism and he is known by the nickname, “Vamp.” Gadsden Police detective Mike Hooks called Brown “a wannabe vampire.” CBS News reports the story as “members of a vampire cult” beating up and branding “one of their own”. Detective Wayne Hammonds says “what was going had nothing to do with popular movies and shows about vampires and more to do with satanic worship” – for which many OVC members praise him. Despite this, the internet abounds with new articles criticizing popular culture, the Vampyre community, and the influence of movies such as Twilight on children.

December 9: OVC – Tensions run high in the OVC over the affront caused by discussions around articles and comments posted by Robert Parratore, who appears to have declared war on the Vampyre Community. Later that day, rumors circulate in the OVC that the true identity of “Robert Parratore” the writer who has launched a scathing attack on the Vampyre Community, has been discovered.

December 10: OVC, USA –An expose’ is released by Wraiths on the IVA website exposing the true identity of the vampophobic article writer, “Robert Parratore”. The expose’ accuses Lupia Sappho Wolf, current Matriarch of the Order of Maidenfear, and includes screenshots as evidence. The news makes waves in the OVC. “Parratore” leaves a comment thanking the poster for the “free publicity”. The expose’ is circulated through the OVC, and before long, a complaint of defamation is laid by “Robert Parratore” to the website service provider, who suspends the website. The IVA forum, on a different site, is unaffected. A few hours later, “Parratore” posts another article on Associated Content, “Blood, Boredom and Blame: The Online Vampire Community” in which he viciously attacks the VVC (Voices of the Vampire Community) group. This is believed by many to be a reaction to the loss of social status experienced by the writer once his true identity had become known in the Community. “Parratore” vows to continue his crusade.

December 12: Canada – The Canadian “Vampire of Viger” makes the headlines again in his 2010 parole hearing, when he is refused release, partly because of his record of producing moonshine inside prison facilities, albeit in what is described as the “resourcefulness” which landed him in maximum security in the first place. It is in part, the pride he takes in transforming fruit juice and other liquids into contraband alcohol to sell to other inmates that convince parole board members to deny Landry any form of release. At his hearing, Landry denies that he is a vampire and states that he resents the term beng applied to him. Landry bit several of his victims during the assault and murder spree he was jailed for, but asserts that he “never had the intention of drinking the blood of his victims.” This case is used by the VC as an example of the media applying the sensational “vampire label” to sell a story.

December 15: USA – A new article by Robert Parratore appears on Associated Content, “Blood, Boredom and Blame: Vampires Tip Their Hand” in which “Parratore” asserts that the VC are “Proving the Case Against Them All by Themselves”. Less attention appears to be given by the OVC to this article in terms of a reaction, although it is clearly read by them.

December 16: USA – The Associated Content profile of Robert Parratore, along with all five articles posted there, is removed by Yahoo after evidence is forwarded to them by the Vampyre Community exposing Parratore’s identity and attack on the VC, along with complaints. Following this, the only trace remaining of Parratore online is on his “Blood, Boredom and Blame” blog, and dishonorable mention on various community sites which had discussed the drama surrounding the incident.

December 16: Racine, Wisconsin, USA – Matthew Lovrine, 17, is arrested at Horlick High School, in Racine, Wisconsin. Police allege he sexually assaulted several girls and drank their blood. Police report the teenager was carrying a knife when he was taken into custody. Lovrine was arrested after one of his girlfriends told police she had been in a sexual relationship with him since she was 15. She claimed that he had been seeing several other women and had threatened her, prompting her to make the complaint. “The girls both mentioned that Mr. Lovrine stated that he was a vampire and would bite them,” said Lt. Jim Dobbs. Several of Lovrine’s classmates were shocked and angry about the allegations. They say this is out of character. He has no criminal record and was part of the school orchestra. “Everybody said he’s nice, but when everybody found out about this, shocked,” said Jessica Waddlington. According to a criminal complaint, Lovrine denies that he’s a vampire. But, he admits having sex with underage girls, saying he’s “just being a teenage boy.” The girls were 15 and 16 when the sexual acts occurred. Lovrine also admitted to carrying a knife to school and cutting the girls, though he claims, they asked him to cut them. Lovrine reportedly dated numerous girls at the same time and was sexually active with most of them, the complaint said, telling them “he is a vampire and will cut them and drink their blood.” A mother of one 16-year-old girl told police that her daughter had told her the night before about her sexual relationship with Lovrine that began when she was 15 and continued until she was 16. The girl told police she started dating Lovrine in 2009 while he was also dating another 17-year-old. The girl said they had consensual sexual intercourse a few times and once had a threesome with him and the 17-year-old girl. The girl also said Lovrine allegedly punched her numerous times during their relationship, once cutting her on the left shoulder with a knife. The 17-year-old girl told police she was in a “polygamist relationship” with Lovrine and the 16-year-old girl and first had sex with him when she was 15. She told police that Lovrine had once hit her on the arm with a knife, requiring her to get stitches, but it was accidental. Lovrine reportedly stated to police he was in a consensual sexual relationship with three girls. He denied punching or hitting the 16-year-old girl and being a vampire. Lovrine, who was stopped at school and found allegedly carrying a pocket knife, reportedly told police he always carries a knife when out of school and forgot he had it in his pocket when he came to school that day, adding he occasionally carries a knife to school but doesn’t mean any harm by it. Lovrine said he had cut the 16-year-old in the shoulder because she reportedly asked him to do it and the other incident where the 17-year-old required stitches was a game of “Tell me when this hurts” gone amiss. When asked if he knew it was illegal to have sex with underage girls, Lovrine reportedly replied he was just “being a teenage boy.” Lovrine was held on a $119,500 cash bail bond at Racine County Jail. The charges against him are two counts of sexual assault on a child and three counts of sex with a child of 16 or older. He is also accused of two counts of having a dangerous weapon on school premises, one count of physical abuse of a child and one second-degree reckless injury. 17 year old Matthew Lovrine could face 100 years in prison.

December 16: OVC – An online debate between Ryan Dube of Top Secret Writers.com and invited members of the OVC is held in the IVA chat room. Participants include Ryan Dube, Wraiths, Octarine Valur, EvilVampire, Cheri, Nadia115, Belfazaar Ashantison, Zimmerchild, RK Coon. In all, there are Sangs, Hybrids and PSI vamps, as well as one donor present. Most reveal details about their personal lives to demonstrate that they are contributing members of society and to dispel stereotypes. Most have had military experience, most are gainfully employed, and few indulge in Gothic fashions. The debate flows around some recent events as well as the reflection of the Vampyre Community in Ryan Dube’s recent articles. The aim of this debate is to clear the air, discuss some recent events with Ryan Dube, and to try and provide him with better insight into the VC and Vampyre nature by allowing him to engage with diverse members of the community. Ryan Dube makes some revelations about the recent drama around Robert Parratore, in that after initial complaints about the identity of Parratore, he investigated and discovered two more fake profiles belonging to the VC figure behind Parratore, all bearing the same IP address – raising the number to five. During the debate, Dube is surprised that those who participate don’t fit the “all-black-dressing, moody,broody, goth” stereotype he was led to believe they would be. This is widely held as an important step towards seeing us as people and not as a “cult” group. Afterwards, the OVC seems to hold a favorable view of the debate and Ryan Dube and express the opinion that the true worth of the exercise will be measured by whatever articles he produces on the VC from this point forward. A transcript of the debate is stored for public view on the IVA forum.

December 17: USA –The increased focus of attention on Vampyres on Yahoo Associated Content results in an increase of articles on the site written by Mundane authors, as well as VC members. Mostly the articles by Mundane authors express curiosity, while those by Vampyres provide mostly clear and easily understood information about the community. Examples include “Encounter with a Vampire” by Jeffrey L. Campbell, “The Not so Scary Truth About Real Vampires” by Niki Fears, and “Could you be a Vampyr” by Father JP Vanir.

December 18: OVC – Numerous exaggerated and hostile comments begin to appear on VC oriented articles on various sites, including Associated Content, which appear to be designed to stir up emotions. These are attributed by some to the recently disgraced VC figure who is the true identity of “Robert Parratore” who has demonstrated a flair for posting vitriolic comments under numerous aliases and false profiles.

December 20: Racine, Wisconsin, USA – Matthew Lovrine appears in court and a cash bond is set for $5,000.

December 20: USA – Ryan Dube delivers a surprisingly positive article on the Vampyre community in the form of an interview with Joseph Laycock, also mentioning some recent events, including the debate held on December 16, and an admission of earlier misunderstandings on his part. This article is received positively by the OVC and taken as a sign of a fresh start with the writer.

December 21: South Africa – Mistwolf, from the Spanish VC, representing an online community publication called “Noctalium”, obtains permission from House Valur to translate and use the Totum Lex Vampyrica in order to introduce it to Spain and Spanish-speaking south American countries. Permission is also given for the Vampyre History Project to be translated and made available in Spanish.

December 24: South Africa – The South African vampire movie “Eternity” hits the movie circuit and receives dismal reviews and heavy criticism for terrible plot, poor production, and abysmal acting from award winning actors. Reviewers (including a few VC reviewers) fundamentally annihilate it. The movie is so bad that even the staff at movie theaters reportedly ask patrons buying tickets “are you sure you want to watch that?”. Although the movie almost completes its anticipated run at theaters, the life-size cardboard cut-out posters disappear from sight by the next day.

December 30: USA – Ryan Dube posts a positive article on the debate in which he participated on 16 December. The article, “Vampires Exist – A Dialog With The Vampire Community” is positively received by the VC.